Adoration of she
by wrath
Summary: one shot: 'From that day on, she was the only freind that girl ever had'


Adoration of she

With an internal twang, the black haired girl felt that one last and oh so frayed string of tolerance finally snap and, before she could stop her self, wheeled round on her second organic shadow that was so much more than just an absence of light.

"Are you still following me?" She blasted, fists tying themselves up into tight knots as her small voice suddenly erupted, echoing wildly down the confides of the ally-way. The little thing that had been dogging her ever since the school bell had liberated the young students of Midwich Elementary stopped dead in its tracks as if its quarry's words had physical slapped her with all their sharp tone. Its eyes jumped from its former prey, desperately scanning the barren ally for some sort of shelter from the girl who looked like she was going to do a damn good impression of a hydrogen bomb at any given second … However, the dismal, closed off walk way offered no protection and the assorted junk just looked on from the dark corners where it lay forgotten with mild cuorosity. The damp, sagging cardboard boxes and splintered creates certainly weren't going to offer any hope of salvation if it meant deriving themselves of what was shaping up to be fine entertainment.

"Look, just say or do whatever it is and just go home already!"

In most cases, Alessa would have reeled in her temper and let the whole thing go. After all, the sight of the pasty child before her shrivelling back as if she'd just sprouted five heads, each spitting fouler venom than the last, was verging on pathetic, however, she'd had a particularly bad week. Also, a short life time of experience had taught Alessa that turning your back on even the most seeming-less threat and throwing caution to the wind could be as fatal as jeering at the school bully while in comfortable thumping distance. This apparent phobia could just be another well disguised strategy…

Children did have more than one way to get at you after all … and they were masters of psychology. They worked as a pack, weeding out those among their ranks who did not fit the status quo and systematically picked away at them until there was nothing left of their universal victim save for an empty shell. All this would be done under the guise of smiling, youthful faces… something the eyes of adults could never dream of penetrating, partly because they didn't want to believe such a world could exist.

Alessa Gillespie was one such unfortunate child who had been deemed by her peers as unworthy… and this damning sentence had been passed even before the young girl had completed a single day of school. It wasn't hard really, considering the notoriety she'd inherited from her mother.

To say that the entity known to the rest of the small, sleepy town of Silent Hill as Dahlia Gillespie was viewed as something of an oddity could easily qualify as the understatement of the entire history of the human race. In the eyes of most, she was just a few notches above stark loony mad… but then, what kind of opinion where people meant to form about a woman who spent the majority of her hours lurking about inside the town's dank church or that musty old antique shop she'd inherited from her ailing mother. Then, of course, there was the attitude.

Dahlia's philosophy of the world was not one embraced by the rest of the community. Step into her store and she would mumble occultist obscenities under her breath; bump into her on the street and she would loudly preach the glory of God; tell her your opinion of her mantra and she'd quite happily tell you just how far south you'd be spending the rest of eternity.

And so, because of all this, the moment word got out about Alessa's heritage her fate was as good as sealed. At first it had been bearable; while sticks and stones _may_ break bones, words can easily be shrugged off and forgotten, and at the beginning, that was all her peers had been armed with. Also, back then (in what now seemed like a forgotten age to the short life-span of a child's memory) they'd never dared to launch a head on attack. In those early days, all little Alessa Gillespie would have to do was step into the classroom or wonder that bit too near to a gaggle of fellow kindergarteners and that would be enough to set small tongues clicking sharply with infectious bitching, a sound accompanied by the occasional suspicious glance over the shoulder at their topic in question. However, as happy as they may be to plunge their verbal daggers into her back, on no account would one of them bring themselves to say something to that Gillespie girl's face.

Why?

Ah, the answered to that one is a simple one indeed; they were too afraid. See, one thing children have no lack in is imagination (unless of course the poor thing's been reduced to a sludgy mush thanks to over-exposing it to television). They would hear the stories their parents brought home with them after the day's trials and share across the dinner table with spouses and offspring. Most of it would go over their heads in a dull muzz, but every now and again they'd bring home something worth sitting up ramrod straight and paying attention to... especially if it was on a morbid subject.

Dahlia Gillespie sure as hell qualified as one of those.

They would tune into their parent's ramblings, picking up on the sense of unease that twisted their words into something fearful… something hateful.

"…crazy old witch…" Again and again that would be used in conjunction with her and each time the words would scratch a little deeper, wedging themselves firmly into the child's brain. Yes, they had all seen the woman in question with her strange clothes and old, craggy face that screwed up like the rough skin of a tree. It was a very fortunate child indeed who managed to go through this early stage of life without being hacked down by this crone's particularly sharp tongue and forced fed her repertoire about 'the glory of god'. With all that in mind, it was all too easy to imagine her riding a broomstick or muttering black gibberish which truly would damn your soul to hell.

That was why, for their first few years together the children left Alessa Gillespie alone and out in the cold, only voicing their shared disgust at the dark eyed thing when they were sure she was safely out of ear-shot. What if that sad little thing had inherited her mother's fabled powers? One child, a Tad Trenton had scared himself near to the point of becoming a gibbering nervous wreck with the fear that that girl had overheard him exercising all those 'banned words' that would make his mother scream like a stuck pig and reach for the nearest bar of soap on said child. For the best part of a week, he'd been absolutely convinced that that venomous look she'd shot him was going to cause his head to implode at any given moment with a dry, fatal crack.

Of course, the boy lived. Soon the fear was gone and replaced with something new; budding young arrogance. Ha, why this girl was nothing to fear and neither she nor her mother had the power to turn you inside out just by raising their eyebrows…

She was just another kid.

And so, with that revelation that swept through her peers like a hot virus, Alessa's already sordid life took a turn for the worse.

Before, school had been a utopia form home… heck, every time she stepped out beyond the gate that cut of the Gillespie household from the rest of the world, the little girl felt what she imaged all those with faith in their lord would feel the moment they set foot in that promised paradise, blinking in a daze at its wonder.

No more. The children changed their tactics and school just became another circle of hell.

At first, they'd just orcastirsed her… no problem, Alessa could deal with that.

Then came the sharp and abusive words… ok, that cut a little deeper but Alessa could deal with that.

The notes, tucked away in her locker, her books, vindictively carved into her desk. Fine, Alessa could deal with that… but that little seed of worry began to germinate and claw its way up towards the sun. What if all they really wanted to do was carve those foul words into her flesh and the wood was only a poor substitute? Would they? Could they?

Yes. Yes they could.

The beatings started at some point during her second year of school, and when the children saw that there was nothing this girl could do to stop them, no mystical force protecting her, they grew all the more abusive. Since then, Alessa had been wary of any child who approached her, especially the ones who came up smiling for they normally had something dark hidden under those lying grins that promised false friendship...

Which brings us back to the current situation.

Her stalker, this strange white thing took a step back, catching the hot look that quietly smouldered within the girls eyes.

"I-I wasn't going to do anything, I swear it!"

"Then why have you been following me all day!" Alessa felt the immature muscles in her arm go tight under their blanket of skin as she cocked her small fists. The girl before her, a year younger perhaps, she couldn't quite tell opened her mouth to reply but quickly shut it again. Her translucent hands found each other and wrung together as her watery blue eyes dropped to one side, boring a guilty hole into the ground.

"Because… because I wanted to see you…"

Alessa felt her arms go limp and drop to her sides, heavy with freshly-budding confusion.

"Huh?" She asked, making the uncouth sound that never failed to make her mother positively livid ("It's pardon, Alessa, _pardon_!"). She hadn't been prepared for that…

The girl's eyes crept onto her, crawling onto Alessa with a stealthy cautiousness as if she feared the dark haired child might spontaneously combust or something.

"I've just heard so much about you… All I wanted to do was see if it was true…" She trailed off, watching and waiting for that simmering rage to bite back at her from the corner of her eyes.

'_Huh, I should have thought…'_ That dark cloud rolled over Alessa's face once more. Oh, she saw straight through this girl and her unnervingly crisp dictions. She was just another child who'd heard the stories and come running up to see if the freak-show really was as gross as the masses said. She should just turn her back and carry on home before she did anything _rash_.

"What I mean is… my father's always saying so much about you and I just wanted-"

"Wait a minuet." Alessa cut the girl off, gumming her lips together in a sudden silence that seemed to flood the ally way, sloshing against its peeling sides. Something wasn't right… something didn't quite click into place as it should….Her father? Alessa wasn't aware that the parents of Silent Hill had joined in with their children's torments. "What d'you mean 'your father'?"

The girl lent back, her bland cloths creaking and gave Alessa a look that suggested the dark haired girl had just asked her what one and one make.

"He's always talking about you… and all the things you're going to do…" She trailed of, her voice momentarily sinking as the girl brought her self to meet Alessa's gaze. "…The good things."

Alessa felt a rill of chills tip-toe up her spine. Her mother liked to harp on about the 'good things' she was destined to do as well...

"Who is your father?"

"Leonard, Leonard Wolf."

"What, the priest!" Despite all the praise her mother would gush like a broken sewage pipe whenever the topic of Leonard Wolf raised its head, Alessa had never warmed to the man. Sure, she may only have to be cooped up with him for two hours every week, but that was more than enough for her (and, as Alessa though, anyone else who considered themselves sane).

Leonard was a scary man. Come nine o'clock on a Sunday morning Alessa would always feel that familiar sinking feeling grab her dangling feet and slowly begin to pull her down as she sat in the stiff, lifeless wooden pew when she saw Mr. Wolf make his way to the alter of Silent Hill's less popular church. Before he'd even clambered up onto the alter, he'd start his _ranting_.

He would scream, he would shout and, my god, would he beat the poor alter to a mushy pulp slamming his hand down on its surface to ram home every single sentence he made. If Alessa had stayed in school for long enough to learn about Nazi Germany and the second world war, the first thing that would cross her mind when she saw those dusty old tapes about the Nuremburg Rallies would be Leonard Wolf and his weekly congregation.

She found it almost impossible to believe that, in a burst of friendliness, he'd managed to conceive the child before her.

The girl before her simply nodded and Alessa suddenly found herself unable to say anything but stupidly utter 'oh'.

The pair's shadows had grown long in the vanishing afternoon light, the grey things stretching out like dosed felines and Alessa suddenly realised that it was getting late; and so was she.

"Look, I've got to go." Before she even thought about it, she followed up the fading words with a sentence she'd never used before. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

It was only when she was halfway up the street that she'd realised what she'd said.

After the dark haired girl had left, the other lingered in that ally way for a little while, those blue eyes hovering over the spot where Alessa had disappeared from sight. Without warning, her face cracked a smile.

That night, Claudia Wolf made her way to the remote little house she called home with a smile on her face.

8 8 8

A/N; firstly thankyou for taking the time to read this rather pointless story that's just one digresion after another and secondly, appologies about the spelling mistakes. It's kind of worrying when the spell cheker dosn't have a clue what it is you tried to spell.

As always, any CC would be greatly appreciated.


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